"You're sure she's gone?" Magnolia asked as the four of them stepped back into the flickering torchlight of the upper hall. Her voice held the same steel as always, but there was a faint edge beneath it not fear, not doubt. Reverence.
"She walked into a wall and vanished," Beckett muttered. "Unless she knows some trick of the Keep I haven't seen, she's not exactly around the corner."
Rhett said nothing. He moved like a shadow now, silent, dangerous, focused. His gaze never left Camille.
She hadn't spoken in several minutes. The silver thread still wrapped around her fingers, glowing faintly in rhythm with her pulse.
"What are you thinking?" he finally asked her.
"That I'm holding a key," she answered. "And I don't know which door it was meant to open."
"The bond awakened something down there," Magnolia said. "You saw the way it reacted to you. It wasn't defense. It was allegiance."
